Swinney vows ‘absolute confidence’ in Lord Advocate amid row over Murrell memo

John Swinney has insisted he has “absolute confidence” in Scotland’s most senior prosecutor, amid claims the Lord Advocate committed a “gross misjudgment” when she revealed details of allegations against former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell in a private email to the First Minister.

The Conservatives and Labour have claimed that giving such details to Mr Swinney weeks before they were made public gave him a political advantage.

Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC has already told MSPs she sent the minute to the First Minister to inform him of a “significant development” in the case against Murrell – who was married to Nicola Sturgeon – and to “ensure the Government is reminded of its legal responsibilities to restrict its comments”.

She said she would “roundly reject” any suggestion she is “corrupt”.

But with the minute – detailing that Murrell is charged with embezzling almost £460,000 from the SNP – sent to Mr Swinney on January 19, weeks before details of the charge became public, Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay was insistent that the Lord Advocate had handed the First Minister a political advantage.

“Thanks to the Lord Advocate, John Swinney and the SNP knew the precise scale of the alleged crime while the public knew nothing,” Mr Findlay said during First Minister’s Questions on Thursday.

“The Lord Advocate’s private memo gave John Swinney political advantage.”

Noting that Ms Bain had been appointed to the post by Ms Sturgeon, he said Mr Swinney had been the former first minister’s “right-hand man” and had then been given “a heads up about the criminal case involving her husband”.

Stressing that the Lord Advocate, who advises Scottish Government ministers on legal matters as well as heading the prosecution service in Scotland, is meant to be “scrupulously politically neutral”, Mr Findlay declared: “In the real world this smacks of corruption.”

Mr Swinney however gave a staunch defence of the Lord Advocate, hitting back at Mr Findlay – who had called on Wednesday for Ms Bain to consider her position.

The First Minister said: “I want to say something very directly to Mr Findlay, to Parliament and to the public in Scotland.

“Dorothy Bain is an outstanding prosecutor, she is an outstanding lawyer, she has 40 years of unimpeachable service to the public interest in Scotland.

“She alone is responsible for more cases of sexual violence of men against women being brought to justice than any other person, and I put on record today my absolute confidence in the Lord Advocate in undertaking her duties.”

The SNP leader insisted he was “disgusted by the way Russell Findlay spoke about her yesterday”, with Mr Swinney adding the Tory “should be ashamed of himself and he should withdraw every word of contemptible rubbish”.

Mr Findlay branded that “desperate deflection” from the SNP leader, saying his response was worthy of the “best Oscar for phoney anger”.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar asked the First Minister to confirm if he or any of his advisers contacted the Crown Office asking to be updated on the case, to which Mr Swinney said they had not.

The First Minister said he had shared the minute he received from the Lord Advocate with a small number of people in the Scottish Government who speak on his behalf, saying it was “vital” they were aware of the live court proceedings.

But Mr Sarwar accused the Lord Advocate of appearing to give “inaccurate and contradictory information” in her statements to Holyrood on Wednesday, citing discrepancies with a response issued by the Crown Office.

Answering an urgent question in Holyrood on the issue on Wednesday, Ms Bain said there was “no limitation on its terms being made public” after an indictment has been made, but the Crown Office statement described an indictment as “not a public document”, saying it does not become so until it is laid in court.

“These two statements cannot be true,” the Scottish Labour leader said on Thursday.

He added that if details of the charge had not been published by the Sun newspaper earlier this month, “the only people who would have known the details of this case before the election would have been the Crown, Peter Murrell and – bizarrely, because the Lord Advocate notified them – John Swinney and his SNP advisers”.

Mr Sarwar asked: “How is that acceptable and not the very definition of political advantage?”

Mr Swinney then launched a scathing attack on Mr Sarwar, raising a letter Ms Bain had sent to the Labour leader which accused him of “a number of factual errors” in previous statements, which she wanted to correct “in order to protect the rule of law”.

The First Minister said: “That tells us all we need to know.

“Anas Sarwar, putting factual errors into the public domain, undermining the rule of law.”

He claimed that as a result, Mr Sarwar was “unfit to lead the Labour Party”.

Murrell had been expected to appear at the High Court in Glasgow for a preliminary hearing this Friday, but this has now been moved to May 25 at the High Court in Edinburgh.